Despite increases in Ontario’s harvested acres for both soybeans and corn, the province’s production of both crops in 2019 followed the rest of Canada’s lower in Statistics Canada’s latest estimates.
StatsCan’s November estimates for production of principal field crops, released Friday, dropped Canada’s production of soybeans to six million tonnes, down 18.5 per cent from 2018, and corn production down 3.5 per cent to 13.4 millon tonnes.
“Poor weather conditions throughout the major soybean-producing provinces likely contributed to the decrease in yields from a year earlier,” the agency said.
Canada’s corn crop, meanwhile, faced “cold and wet conditions during the spring, which delayed planting, as well as dry conditions throughout the growing season and poor weather during harvest in Ontario and Quebec,” which together produce about 85 per cent of the country’s corn.
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Soybeans
StatsCan’s data show Ontario’s harvested soybean acres rose 2.8 per cent, to 3.1 million, in 2019, but the province’s yields fell 7.3 bushels per acre on average to 44.1 bushels per acre, bringing production down 11.7 per cent to 3.7 million tonnes.
Manitoba’s harvested soybean area for 2019 dropped 24.5 per cent, to 1.41 million acres, while yields fell 14.1 per cent, to 29.2 bushels per acre, for production of 1.12 million tonnes, the lowest level in the province since 2014 and down 35.2 per cent from 2018.
Quebec’s 2019 yields were reported down 9.2 per cent at 42.6 bushels per acre, on 903,100 acres, down 1.1 per cent, for soybean production of one million tonnes, down 10.1 per cent.
Soy production in Saskatchewan and Alberta dropped well below half of 2018 levels, at 107,200 and 4,900 tonnes respectively for 2019, StatsCan reported. The two provinces’ harvested acres were similarly down, at 139,200 and 6,500.
Corn
Ontario grain corn growers also reported an increase in harvested area in 2019, StatsCan said, pegging acres at 2.1 million, up 3.2 per cent. Yields, however, were down 4.6 per cent at 158.4 bushels per acre, cutting the province’s production to 8.6 million tonnes, down 1.5 per cent from 2018.
Quebec’s harvested corn area slipped one per cent to 938,000 acres in 2019, StatsCan estimated, while its yields fell six per cent to 141.4 bushels per acre for production of 3.4 million tonnes, down 6.9 per cent from 2018.
Manitoba’s grain corn acres rose by almost two per cent in 2019, at 425,300, but production dropped slightly to 1.185 million tonnes, down from 1.2 million in 2018.
Alberta’s corn acres were down 37 per cent at 20,100, and production dropped to 63,300 tonnes, down from 118,300 in 2018. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
